Event Details
Uncover the compelling stories, complex characters, and overlooked histories that reveal another side of the places we know.
Event Details
Uncover the compelling stories, complex characters, and overlooked histories that reveal another side of the places we know.
Speakers for this event
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Adam Bunch
Adam Bunch
Adam Bunch is the author of The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, the host of the Canadiana documentary series, and the creator of the Toronto Time Traveller newsletter, the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History, and the Toronto Dreams Project. His work popularizing Canadian history was recognized with the Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media — the Pierre Berton Award.
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Barbara Dickson
Barbara Dickson
Barbara Dickson’s writing career started after her life-changing multiple sclerosis diagnosis thirty-four years ago when she medically retired from her IT profession. Her first articles appeared in national and international magazines. She then expanded to novel-length fiction and finally into non-fiction where she has become a research historian, esteemed and sought-after public speaker, film producer, and advocate for women who served on the home front during the Second World War.Her 2015 book Bomb Girls: Trading Aprons for Ammo unveiled the history of Canada’s largest munitions factory. Courage and Grit: The Legacy of Canada’s Bomb Girls and her non-profit Bomb Girls Legacy Foundation fulfill her resolve to honour Canada’s bomb girls past, present and future. Honouring her forebears’ bravery in the face of war and valiant souls who face an uncertain future living with MS drives Barbara’s passion.Barbara was born, raised and continues to live in Scarborough, Ontario.
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Lorna Poplak
Lorna Poplak
Lorna Poplak is a Toronto-based writer, editor, and researcher drawn to the dark side of history. She is a member of Crime Writers of Canada (CWC), Sisters in Crime, and Mesdames of Mayhem. Lorna’s work includes three true crime books: Drop Dead: A Horrible History of Hanging in Canada, The Don: The Story of Toronto’s Infamous Jail, and On the Lam: Great (and Not So Great) Escapes from Prison. The Don was shortlisted for both the CWC Excellence Award and the Heritage Toronto Book Award, and On the Lam was nominated for the 2026 CWC Excellence Award.
Books
Courage and Grit: The Legacy of Canada's Bomb Girls
Uncover the stories of intrepid Canadians who served on the home front during the Second World War.
On September 10, 1939, CBC Radio interrupted its broadcast with the historic announcement that Canada had declared war on Nazi Germany. From that moment, hundreds of thousands of war workers — predominantly women — forged a new culture within the nation’s labour, home, and political environs.
Courage and Grit features ninety amazing stories of these women — from father’s daughters to lawyers, impoverished immigrants to Rosedale elites, and high school students to great-grandmothers. Each narrative is unique, intimately personal, and painstakingly examined.
These never-before-told stories of faith, love, and sacrifice offer a culturally rich history of the women who served at home during the Second World War.
AuthorBarbara Dickson
PublisherDundurn Press
On the Lam: Great (and Not So Great) Escapes from Prison
Fascinating stories of the age-old tug-of-war between prisons struggling to keep inmates inside and escapees desperate to get out.
A convict who returned to the prison he had recently escaped from in a vain attempt to foment a mass breakout; a murderer on the run who veered from folk hero to persona non grata after killing a police dog; a fugitive from the United States who was seized in Canada after being featured on America’s Most Wanted; a repeat escapee who shot himself, preferring death to recapture; a serial killer on the prowl in a small community — these are just a few of the felons whose prison break escapades continue to enthrall and terrify.
Along with probing the origins, structure, and shortcomings of a variety of historic and contemporary correctional institutions, On the Lam brings into sharp focus the attempts — sometimes successful, occasionally deadly — of masterminds, tricksters, scoundrels, and innocents to claw their way to freedom.
AuthorLorna Poplak
PublisherDundurn Press
The Toronto Book of Love
Toronto’s past is filled with passion and heartache. The Toronto Book of Love shares fascinating true tales of romance, marriage, and lust: From the scandalous love affairs of the city’s early settlers to the prime minister’s wife partying with rock stars on her anniversary; from First Nations marriage ceremonies to a pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform one of Canada’s first same-sex weddings.
Home to adulterous movie stars, faithful rebels, and heartbroken spies, Toronto has been shaped by crushes, jealousies, and flirtations. The Toronto Book of Love explores the evolution of the city from a remote colonial outpost to a major modern metropolis through the stories of those who have fallen in love among its ravines, church spires, and skyscrapers.
AuthorAdam Bunch
PublisherDundurn Press
The Toronto Book of the Dead
The history of Toronto is filled with stories whose endings were anything but peaceful: War and plague, duels and executions, suicides and séances. The Toronto Book of the Dead explores these morbid tales: From First Nations burial mounds to the grisly murder of Toronto’s first lighthouse keeper; from the rise and fall of the city’s greatest Victorian baseball star to the final days of the world’s most notorious anarchist.
As Toronto has grown from a muddy frontier town into a booming metropolis of concrete and glass, it has witnessed countless lives lived and lost. The Toronto Book of the Dead tells the tale of the ever-changing city through the lives and deaths of those who made it their final resting place.
AuthorAdam Bunch
PublisherDundurn Press